Chapter VI: The Conduct of Warfare

The three following sections relate to the waters in which
hostile operations may take place. Section 1 probably calls for
no explanatory remark. With reference to Section 2, dealing
with certain spaces of water more or less closed to belligerent
action, it may be desirable to state that the letters as to the
Suez Canal were written to obviate some misconceptions as to
the purport of the Convention of October 29, 1888, and to
maintain that it was not, at the time of writing, operative, so
far as Great Britain was concerned.

This state of things was, however, altered by the Anglo-French
Convention of April 8, 1804, which, concerned principally with
the settlement of the Egyptian and Newfoundland questions,
provides, in Art. 6, that "In order to assure the free passage
of the Suez Canal, the Government of His Britannic Majesty
declares that it adheres to the stipulations of the Treaty
concluded on the 29th October 1888; and to their becoming
operative. The free passage of the canal being thus guaranteed,
the execution of the last phrase of paragraph 1, and that of
paragraph 2 of the 8th article of this Treaty, will remain
suspended."

The last phrase of paragraph 1 of Art. 8 relates to annual
meetings of the agents of the signatory Powers.

Paragraph 2 of this Article relates to the presidency of a
special commissioner of the Ottoman Government over those
meetings.

On the whole question see _Parl. Papers, Egypt_, No. 1 (1888),
_Commercial_, No. 2 (1889), and the present writer's _Studies
in International Law_, pp. 275-293. Note must, of course, now
be taken of the constitutional changes resulting from the war
of 1914.

The provisions of the Treaty of 1888, with reference to the
free navigation of the Suez Canal, have, of course, acquired a
new importance from their adoption into the Hay-Pauncefote
Treaty of November 18, 1901, as to the Panama Canal, and from
the divergent views taken of their interpretation, as so
adopted.